Freshdesk goes Full-on Freemium; Helps Businesses Get Over “Customer Death by Email”

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Freshdesk announces forever free plan for small businesses to provide enterprise-class service with up to 3 customer support agents

Freshdesk offers Free Forever plan

“In almost all my conversations with aspiring startups and small businesses I see more and more evidence pointing to one fact”, says Vikram Bhaskaran, Director of Marketing at Freshdesk. “We are not competing with all those help desk software out there...

Walnut, CA (PRWEB)February 06, 2013

Today Freshdesk, the fastest growing cloud-based customer support platform, announced the launch of a new Forever Free plan for small business and startups. With hundreds of startups and SMBs already active on its platform, including promising cloud telephony upstart Plivo, and TechCrunch Disrupt winner UberConference, Freshdesk has unveiled a new pricing tier that makes it even easier for small businesses to deliver a powerful support experience.

The company which had previously offered the first agent free across all its plans is now offering three full-time agents on its Sprout plan at no cost, forever, essentially making it a free support software for the small and growing business. With this new offering, the company aims to help SMBs transition from the chaos of having no support systems in place, to creating a more proactive support structure”

Evolution of Customer Support
Traditionally, customer support has always been about the customer reaching out to the business, whether through phone or email. However, the support landscape is evolving with customers now taking to social media and various communities to vent their frustration. Freshdesk is amongst the new age of customer support solutions that allow businesses to take a multi-channel approach to customer communication.

But SMBs and startups have a more basic problem - in most cases, they do not even realize the need for a dedicated tool to manage their support. A large number of SMBs moving to Freshdesk had just been using email to manage their support queries.

“In almost all my conversations with aspiring startups and small businesses I see more and more evidence pointing to one fact”, says Vikram Bhaskaran, Director of Marketing at Freshdesk. “We are not just competing with all those help desk software out there... We are competing with Email, and sticky notes!”

Getting over “Death by Email”
According to Vikram, it is easy for startups to fall prey to “Death by Email”. Most businesses don’t really think about their customer support till the churn becomes unmanageable. In most cases, employees and owners continue supporting customers through their own disparate mailboxes. Eventually, conversations get buried, issues get lost and the concept of a shared knowledge just does not exist.

While Freshdesk is already the most affordable player in the customer support space, it has understood that SMB customers will continue to anchor price points relative to email. That means customer support solutions targeting SMBs must offer a powerful set of capabilities priced relative to a Google Apps business account.

Stepping up to Satisfaction
Freshdesk understands that Freemium economics will work only if it helps its free customers eventually become paying users. As businesses grow, the need to take the brand social, support customers across Twitter and Facebook, and engage them through brand communities becomes critical. Freshdesk believes that businesses that take advantage of its free plan to provide an exceptional support experience have a high propensity to scale and move up to higher plans. At its highest paid plan, called Estate, Freshdesk also offers its “Arcade”, for larger teams to stay motivated and keep their support aligned with core business needs through integrated game mechanics.

About Freshdesk:
Freshdesk is a cloud-based help desk software that allows organizations to support their customers through email, phone, website, Facebook and Twitter. With powerful features, an easy to use interface and a freemium pricing model, Freshdesk is widely used by companies ranging from startups all the way up to enterprises. For more information, please visit http://www.freshdesk.com